


Liebe Leben; Der Totentanz

by AnglophilicSins



Category: Elisabeth das Musical
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-09
Updated: 2013-01-09
Packaged: 2017-11-24 07:13:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/631814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnglophilicSins/pseuds/AnglophilicSins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tod has danced with the world since the beginning of days,<br/>but never more so than those years when dim were the sun's rays.</p><p>Tod/Rudolf</p>
            </blockquote>





	Liebe Leben; Der Totentanz

Der Tod remembers a time when the people were names on a list, souls and corpses and movement and life, cold and distant, a forgotten melody.

Tod finds Luigi Lucheni first, contrary to popular belief, before he finds Elisabeth. A small, mousy man with tousled hair and hate, so much hate in those burning amber eyes and a bloodied file. He despised him on sight.

Tod took his dues and departed.

Barely sixteen years later, Tod met Sisi. A heart so cold, so long dead, echoed loudly in its gasp of a beat.

_“Elisabeth, Elisabeth, du brauch mich. Ich liebe dich.”_

He was certain, so certain, a porcelain Engel thrumming with so much joy and freedom and _life_. Der Tod could have been happy, so happy if she should come to him.

She chose Life.

Tod is seldom confused, but then he seldom loves, quietly takes the kleine Sophie by the hand and takes her from her mourning mother, sets her to sleep in her cot and kisses her forehead goodnight.

He forgets her – he has forgotten so many it’s hardly worth mentioning – as soon as he meets Rudolf. He is a bright thing, brave and strong, though small. Tod brings the cat back and they play with its strings and together they watch it dance.

Rudolf is twenty-eight when Tod sees _her_. It’s no secret that Rudolf is… active, but Mary Vetsera seems special to him, spritely and joyful and kind and charismatic.

Tod takes her before her sands are through, makes mortal her immortal soul, tells heaven nothing and wears her skin and walks among the living. Lucheni calmly wipes down his file.

Krieg and Krank have had their moments; Tod assumes that this lapse of control is one such case.

He keeps going to Sisi, he doesn’t know what drives him to go again and again; his heart seems to have had enough of beating, it slows and slows and freezes no matter how hard he tries to feel it.

* * *

Tod is the first to hear when the red flags are raised, snorts with derision at the foolishness of the people, the nobles rotting on their thrones and the peasants rotting in their squalor. He goes above and walks their streets, stretches his muscles and counts the dead men walking.

That night Rudolf sits in silence, handsome jaw and rifle-calloused hands (wielded beyond his will but wielded nonetheless). He sees him. He knows him. _Du kenst mich._

_“Die Schatten werden länger, und den bleiben alle blind und stumm.”_

Rudolf is a curious thing, drawing close and flinching away, his mortal frame trembles helplessly with desire and his breath short with tension.

The red flags rise and Rudolf shakily steps up to grasp the wheel, if just barely with his fingertips. He flinches away as if burnt, looking lost and hopelessly to the blind helmsman.

_“Hilfe mich. Bitte!”_

For all that humanity is praised and damned for, the ability to _listen_ and _comprehend_ and _undertand_ isn’t amongst the virtues or faults of a vast majority. The majority that matters. Isn’t that how this whole fabulous fairground first began?

There is only **_Hass_** in the eyes and the minds of the living, in the darkened hearts of those who want life, hopeless, greedy wretches. The man named Adolf is the idol of the disillusioned Deutschland and Österreich; the disgruntled German peoples with the Jews seeking refuge. Rudolf’s tiny cries go unheard and Tod watches on as a Jewish dame.

He laughs and laughs and laughs. He laughs within the skin he wears and he laughs upon his throne. He laughs till tears are squeezed from his eyes. He laughs till everything hurts. He laughs till he weeps but still he cannot stop.

* * *

The first few times that Rudolf lays with him, he is unaware of Mary Vetsera’s erasure, and the first time Tod is Tod and not Mary, Rudolf falls to his knees with fear and reverence and curious disgust, wailing and hollering his apologies. Tod rolls his eyes, hauls the Prince to his feet and viciously crushes their lips together. Tod is never Mary for Rudolf again.

Rudolf is always euphoric after. After all, how many can say that they’d just fucked Death?

* * *

The Archduchess Sophie ages disgracefully, not in body, but in power. She feels it acutely, the fall of the Monarchy, feels the threat of Ungarn and the damage inflicted by their darling Erzsébet, the poison of her love shrouding the mind of her good son. She tries her best to remove the cause, tries to turn her son’s beautiful muddy eyes away.

On the black and white tiles of the Monarchy there are so many shades of grey she never considers. Never beholds. Not until convenience dictate otherwise. And to her convenience the edges of the board blur, and as readily the grey women of Madam Wolf saunter forward.

Franz Joseph is a fool of a peculiar sort. At the end of the day, drops her hand, eyes filled with disappointment. He storms from the chambers of his aging mother, she in her pale gossamer veil and the frills and petticoats concealing the crumbling body. There is no kiss goodbye.

Tod pulls the sheets over her and lets her sleep at last.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry it's a little messy (stream of thought writing tends to get that way) and if it's confusing. My headcanon ever since watching the musical was always that Tod was wearing Mary's skin to seduce Rudolf over to him...
> 
> But that's probably just me.
> 
> Hopefully I can get the next chapter up some time this year. I'm horrible at finishing things I start.
> 
> -Currently unbeta-ed-


End file.
